


Rumor Has It

by CarolinaNadeau



Series: The Music Man: The Happily-Ever-After [14]
Category: The Music Man (1962), The Music Man - All Media Types, The Music Man - Willson
Genre: Confessions, Epilogue jumps ahead, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Friendship, Intimacy, Light Angst, Literary Banter, Parlor passion, Picnic, Pillow Talk, the rumor mill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarolinaNadeau/pseuds/CarolinaNadeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marian has now been fully accepted by River City's ladies, but as she sees another woman becoming their new pariah, the librarian must find the courage to defend her – even if it means risking her own reputation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Notes on a Scandal

Seeing anyone new in River City was always a matter of great excitement and even greater gossip. Although the town was a relatively young one, it hardly attracted new people in droves; when last year had brought both Marcellus Washburn _and_ Harold Hill as new permanent residents, it had come as quite a shock – to say nothing of the fact that they had each proceeded to wed one of the town's well-established spinsters! But now the better part of a year had gone by, and there had been few additional intrusions into River City life except for a few temporary arrivals, such as visiting relatives, seasonal farmhands, and one completely legitimate and entirely ineffectual salesman of sewing machines.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in March of 1913, however, Marian was quite surprised not only to meet two new River City-ziens but to find them standing right on her own doorstep.

The librarian had been deeply absorbed in the task of washing all the windows in the house, a task which had currently led her to the kitchen, when the sudden chime of the doorbell startled her. Frowning, she tried to think of who it would be at this particular hour. So as not to be too surprised when she opened the door, she darted over to the parlor window and pushed the curtain aside, just enough so that she could see the front doorstep but not be seen herself. A woman and a child were waiting patiently before the door, and Marian was astonished to realize that she recognized neither of them. For a brief moment of frenzied paranoia, her mind rushed with the horrifying possibility that this woman was a figure from Harold's past, and her heart pounded so rapidly that she could very nearly hear it.

Of course, Marian knew it was perfectly reasonable that there should be a lady in the town that she had never met before. As small of a town as River City was, there were still over two thousand residents, and it was unlikely for them all to have crossed paths, or to remember in detail if they had. As she opened the door, the librarian discreetly examined her visitors, trying to recall if she'd ever seen them before.

The woman was pale and handsome, her hair black and shiny beneath a feathery yellow hat. There was a sweet upturned look to her nose, and her large, round eyes were nearly black as her hair. She was clearly young – Marian judged her to be very near to her own age – and was clad in a pale yellow dress that was a bit too voluminous with an excess of frills, probably at least five years out of fashion. Clinging to her skirts was a small girl who looked very much like the woman, dressed in a smart blue sailor suit with her black hair hanging over her shoulder in a single thick braid.

"Good afternoon. Are you Mrs. Hill, the piano teacher?" the woman asked, looking shy and apologetic in a way that contrasted sharply with her vivid appearance.

"Yes, I am," Marian replied, her suspicion not entirely abated. "What may I help you with?"

"Well, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Mrs. Nellie Appleton. and my daughter Millicent –" The child's large eyes snapped up to Marian's for an instant before quickly dropping her gaze down to her shoes. " –has been taking piano lessons for several years now. We just moved to River City and I was told to inquire to you about the possibility of continuing her studies here."

"Oh!" the librarian exclaimed, almost laughing in her utter relief. "I am flattered that somebody was kind enough to mention me, but I'm sorry to say that I'm not exactly the prominent piano teacher in town any longer – my mother gives most of the lessons lately. I only have one appointment free at the moment. Unless you could arrange for Millicent to come at exactly six o'clock on Thursday nights, I'm afraid I may not be able to be the one to teach her."

Mrs. Appleton nodded slowly, pursing her lips. "I don't think we would have a problem with that time, would we, Milly?"

The girl shook her head quickly, grateful for the opportunity to look at her mother instead of at Marian. "That's good," she murmured, her high voice cracking.

The librarian smiled warmly at them. "Well, why don't you two come inside so we can discuss the details? I'd also like to hear what Millicent is capable of so I'll know where to start her lessons. Follow me to the music room, please."

xxx

As it turned out, Millicent Appleton was one of the more naturally talented students that Marian had ever had taught – despite the little girl's almost painful bashfulness, she possessed skills that were very impressive for one so young, and Marian soon grew to look forward to her lessons with her. While the girl was rather difficult to get through to, the librarian had already developed a warm affection for her as she realized how similar her new student was to her brother. Though she had no difficulty in articulation, Milly was just as loath to speak as Winthrop had once been, and even eye contact could send her into a full-on panic. Although she did not know the cause of Milly's condition, Marian was as patient and understanding as she could manage, and the girl seemed to appreciate it greatly. When she timidly confessed, after only her third lesson, how much she preferred Marian over her former piano teacher and even any of the teachers she'd had in school, the librarian was touched. It might have been, in part, her fondness for young Milly that led her to accept so unhesitatingly when Harold suggested one night that it might be time to forgo their attempts to delay parenthood – not that they had ever practiced them with much consistency, anyway.

Mrs. Appleton always accompanied Millicent to and from her lessons, but Marian was a bit shocked when the woman showed up on her doorstep on a Friday afternoon about a month after their first meeting.

"I hope I haven't caught you at an inconvenient time," Mrs. Appleton said demurely, her brown eyes wide with self-effacing worry. "But I just wanted you to have this pie – in appreciation for what you've done for Milly. She really adores you, Mrs. Hill."

"Your daughter is a delightful student," Marian told her with a warm smile as she accepted the pie – it was a lemon meringue that smelled heavenly. "Thank you very much! That's awfully thoughtful of you to do that for me."

It was a curious gesture – none of her students' parents had ever bothered to engage personally with her other than to pay her or inquire about their children's progress. Unsure of how to respond to Mrs. Appleton's unexpected visit, the librarian marshaled her domestic instincts and asked her if she might like to come in for tea.

Marian felt more than a little awkward as the two of them first sat down together in the parlor – it seemed that she would be responsible for leading the conversation, as Mrs. Appleton was nearly as diffident as her daughter.

There was something very insubstantial, twitchy, fluttery about Mrs. Appleton – her eyes and hands were in constant motion, and she had a nervous habit of repeatedly smoothing back the tendrils of hair behind her ears. Between her mannerisms and her penchant for ruffles and feathers, Marian thought of her, not unkindly, as being rather like a small bird – though she was in actuality a few inches taller than the librarian.

Politely, Marian asked Mrs. Appleton where she had come from and what had brought her to River City.

"I lived up in Platteville, Wisconsin, but – certain circumstances necessitated a change of situation," Mrs. Appleton answered cryptically, staring into her teacup. "I was able to get a job teaching at River City High School – I used to teach before I was married."

The librarian was slightly stunned that the school board would have approved the hiring of a married woman as a teacher, but she thought it would be improper to pry into the matter of how Mrs. Appleton had landed her position. Instead, Marian asked her, "What subject do you teach?"

"English and literature," she replied – and for Marian, the conversation instantly changed from banal to fascinating.

Despite her eccentricities, despite the fact that they had only just met, in the course of this conversation Mrs. Appleton managed to become one of Marian's most favorite people in River City. Marian found that she was just the sort of lady that she had long felt this town to be sorely lacking. Mrs. Appleton had a knowledge of and passion for literature that the librarian had not found in another person since Uncle Maddy. It was incredibly refreshing to meet another River City-zien with such intellectual interests – the two of them ardently discussed their favorite poets, the shame of censorship, the foolishness of Elinor Glyn's novels, and the genius of Shakespeare for nearly two hours, until they had long run out of tea and their conversation was disrupted by the arrival of Harold.

As the music professor poked his head into the parlor, he looked understandably surprised.

"Oh, good evening," he ventured, clearly uncertain of what kind of greeting is expected when coming home to find one's wife entertaining a woman that one has not yet met.

To be honest, Marian did not know if there was a particular protocol that should be followed, either, but she attempted to rescue her husband. "Oh, Mrs. Appleton, this is my husband, Harold Hill. Harold – this is – um, my friend, Mrs. Nellie Appleton."

Marian had gotten rather accustomed to the phrase "my husband" over the past five months, though it still delighted her to say it, but "my friend" – it had been so long since she had referred to anybody in that way that she felt unsure if she was using the word correctly. Could one become a friend after a single conversation? Was she being dreadfully presumptuous? Should she have asked Mrs. Appleton's permission before calling her that? But that sounded so childish!

"How do you do, Mrs. Appleton?" Harold said with a smile. "I believe I've already met your daughter – Milly, is that right?"

"Yes, that's her," Mrs. Appleton replied, her voice going a little softer again now that she was talking to somebody with whom she had not yet grown comfortable. "I've heard so very much about you around town, Professor Hill. Your band seems to be the pride and joy of River City!"

Husband and wife exchanged fond glances, the two of them realizing in amusement at the same time that Mrs. Appleton knew nothing about the extremely unusual circumstances that had brought the boys' band into existence and the two of them together.

"Yes, well, the band is, ahem, still just starting out, but we're always getting better, and Marian's done so very much for us," he proclaimed with a grin. "I don't suppose you have a son, do you?"

Marian just about gasped at his audacity – was he really conducting a sales pitch in their own home? – but to her relief, Nellie did not seem offended.

"Not yet, but if I do, I'd love to have him learn an instrument someday," Nellie answered placidly, and for the first time Marian noticed the definitive roundness of the English teacher's abdomen.

Once again, she felt a bit baffled – a woman who was not only married, but pregnant, had been hired at the high school? It seemed too improbable to be true, yet Nellie did not seem like the type capable of large-scale deception – unless her entire shrinking-violet persona was an act. Still, Marian wasn't about to jump to such a cynical conclusion. Surely not _every_ person who came into River City could be a charlatan!

Long after Mrs. Appleton had departed and Harold and Marian had finished their dinner, the librarian still found herself mulling over the particulars of their enjoyable but rather odd visit.

"You and that Nellie Appleton already looked like a couple of old friends when I walked in here. I think it's wonderful that there'll be another literary lady for you to talk to now," Harold noted as they washed the dishes together.

"Oh, I know," Marian agreed. "As wonderful as it is to have all of River City interested in music – well, it seems unlikely that they'll all be as enamored with books anytime soon. The ladies do more reading now than they used to, for certain, but their chief passion is still, well – gossip!"

"Maybe you and Mrs. Appleton both can work together to give River City a literary renaissance," the professor said with a wink.

"Wouldn't that be wonderful? I know that Nellie's not exactly a _personality_ , but if Mrs. Shinn and the ladies grew to like her, I really think we might be able to persuade them... and why shouldn't they like her? She's very sweet, after all."

"And, if nothing else, River City could _always_ use more of her wonderful pies!"

xxx

Marian was never quite sure how to feel around the prominent ladies of River City. While the women did dote on her and hang on her every well-educated word after they had realized the error of their ways back in July, the librarian was not so foolish as to forget entirely the years of loneliness that the cruel gossip of these same women had brought upon her. Most of the ladies, with the exception of the inscrutably aloof Eulalie Shinn, had often seemed very remorseful and apologetic toward Marian whenever they remembered just how they had treated her, and Ethel Washburn, as the wife of Harold's dearest friend and one of the least malicious gossips to begin with, had grown rather close to the librarian in recent months. But Marian never felt _comfortable_ around them, exactly, and she had been rather discouraged to realize that despite her considerably more active social life nowadays, there was not one female that she could talk with half as easily as she could with her husband. As much as she liked Ethel, the two of them could hardly talk about anything more stimulating than housework and fashions. Despite her earnest appreciation of the library and Marian's knowledge, Ethel wasn't one to concern herself with much beyond the simple pleasures and problems of River City life.

She had envied Harold's relationship with Marcellus, sometimes. They had such a long history, such a comfortable familiarity, and somehow fate had conspired to bring them both to the same little town! Marian never expected to see any of her school friends from back East again, and even if she did, it was unlikely that they would have anything in common by now. But most of the committee ladies were far older than her and had entirely different interests, and, most importantly, Marian knew that she could never form a genuine, intimate friendship with a person who had spent years laughing scornfully behind her back.

That was why it had been a tremendous relief to meet a woman who not only shared her passions, but who had not even been in town to hear the spiteful rumors about her. There was also another victory – she had proved herself capable of shedding the friendlessness that these rumors had made a fact of her life. It had been so long since Marian had made a new friend that she had wondered if she had forgotten how, or if the forming of friendships was somehow too childish of a phenomenon for an adult woman to grasp. But after that first conversation, the women fell rather easily into a routine of calling on one another, or stopping to chat before or after Milly's lessons. Marian felt now as though she had at last started anew, that she had finally thrown off the yoke that had been placed over her shoulders ever since her family had moved to River City.

Of course, it was a mistake for her to assume that one could ever be entirely free from the far-reaching and poisonous effects of a small community prone to gossip. She was soon to learn that her newfound companionship with Nellie was to be anything but free of such difficulties.

xxx

When the Ladies' Events Committee convened in late April, they did so in the ostentatiously furnished parlor of Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Hix. All sage-green fabric and dark wood and cluttered Victorian decor, the Hix home gave the constant impression of being oppressively dusty even though it was kept impeccably clean. Even Marian, whose tastes in decor admittedly ran toward the ornate, felt that whoever had designed this particular interior must have had something of a vendetta against air, light and space.

It was in this living museum that the committee had gathered for the solemn purpose of organizing a "May Day Bake Sale", the proceeds of which would go toward the noble, if vaguely defined, Town Beautification Campaign that they were planning to enact during the summer of 1913. In the small notebook in which she recorded the vital details of these meetings, Marian was jotting down what sort of baked goods each lady had pledged to contribute. After the committee members' confectionary repertoires had been thoroughly accounted for, they had moved on to the slightly more difficult task of figuring out whomever else in River City they could wheedle into providing pastry.

Marian very rarely spoke up in the phases of these meetings that called for community connections – for other than her mother or Harold, there was nobody to whom she was close enough to ask for help.

But as Alma Hix lamented that she simply couldn't think of one more lady who was a talented baker, and that she supposed that she just might have to ask Mrs. Hattie Lloyd to round out their selection with her notoriously regrettable rhubarb pie, Marian dutifully piped up to ask if any of the ladies had met Mrs. Nellie Appleton.

While a few of the ladies looked back at her with no sign of recognition, most of the others smiled – and not with friendly affection. There was a sort of hunger in their eyes and a smugness about their lips, and Marian knew, her heart sinking, that Mrs. Appleton would not be welcomed at the bake sale.

"Hmm, Mrs. Hill," simpered Maud Dunlop with condescending reproachfulness, "It seems that you don't know as much as you think you do about Mrs. Appleton. I'm sure that if you did, you would not have made such a suggestion."

"I know that she can bake the most delicious pies," Marian blurted, feeling foolish. "I teach her daughter."

Mrs. Shinn let out an abrupt bark of laughter. "Her daughter, yes. I don't suppose you've met _Mr._ Appleton, have you?"

Marian could feel herself growing pale. Was this really how it started – had there once been a conversation just like this about her? "No, as a matter of fact, I –"

"Because there isn't a Mr. Appleton!" Mrs. Hix proclaimed authoritatively. "And, personally, I don't think there ever was."

Mrs. Dunlop tapped her fingernails on the table, shaking her head. "The woman wears the showiest clothes – all those pretty pastels – certainly unbecoming of a widow!"

Her breathing began to come more quickly, and Marian realized that she was at a dangerous risk of crying. She had been so certain that the ladies had come far enough so as to never again viciously attack a woman about whom they knew so little – they still gossiped, of course, but never like _this_. And to hear all of this vitriol aimed toward someone who she considered a friend – it was almost too much to handle.

"You don't know that she was _recently_ widowed!" the librarian protested, trying her best to sound logical and detached so as not to betray her turmoil of emotion. "Her daughter is old enough to be in school, after all."

Mrs. Squires smirked as she exclaimed, "Haven't you noticed her waistline? I'd say she was widowed within the past six months – or she wants us to think so, at least." Marian winced inwardly as she chastised herself for overlooking so obvious a detail.

The mention of Mrs. Appleton's maternal condition pounded the final nail into any chance of her respectability. The next few minutes went by in a blur of vindictive clamor:

"She doesn't go to church! She lives next door to me and I've never seen her leaving the house on a Sunday morning, not once."

"Well, I daresay if she were the God-fearing type, she'd not be in her situation, would she?"

"Her daughter's a strange one as well, acts downright unnatural sometimes."

"I wonder if the baby's father is even the same as the little girl's?"

"I could have sworn I saw her _flirting_ with the school principal – he's my sister's husband..."

"You know, I saw her in the mercantile and she didn't even say hello to me."

"To think the town lets people like her teach our children!"

Before long Marian was hardly hearing their specific accusations, hearing instead the dreadful, tinny echoes of rumors past: _Her kind of woman doesn't belong on any committee... She advocates dirty books... She was seen coming and going from his house!..._

In her mind, she was screaming: _Stop! You have no proof, and no right to say these things!_ She composed a long, indignant speech about how it wasn't so long ago that the ladies had thought terrible things about herself, and hadn't they been wrong then?

But the timeless dilemma of the schoolyard bystander kept her silent. She knew it was her moral responsibility to stand up for _any_ person who was being degraded in such a way, but even her personal loyalty to Mrs. Appleton could not surmount the cold dread Marian felt at the prospect of such barbs being tossed in her direction once again. If she defended Nellie, the women could easily see her as having immoral tendencies, herself, and it would be a short road from there to becoming an outcast once again. Marian simply couldn't bring herself to throw herself against those ladies with whom she had never yet felt that she had a very firm footing.

So, instead of directly addressing their gossip, Marian simply cleared her throat and tapped her pencil against her notebook. "So, Mrs. Hix, I suppose you will be asking Mrs. Lloyd if she would like to donate her rhubarb pie?"

xxx

Marian had planned to go into town after the meeting to get a little shopping done, but her mind buzzed uncomfortably with anxiety, and she found that she did not feel up to going about in public. Her instinct, in times of trouble, was to run to her mother or Harold – but to explain why she was so distraught, she would be forced to admit her own cowardice.

After wandering aimlessly through the park for a while, Marian finally set her course for home, where, at least until band practice ended, she could be alone. She drew the shades in the parlor and crumpled on the couch, nauseated with worry, paralyzed with the inability to act.

It took a while for the one terrible thought to cut through Marian's fog of self-pity, but when it did, it made her blood run cold, and she bolted upright with a gasp.

_Does Nellie know yet what they say about her? And if not – how long before she finds out?_

Before long, Marian was going to have to defend Mrs. Appleton against the ladies _–_ it was only a matter of when _–_ and _how_.


	2. Second Opinions

For all of the wonders that Harold Hill had brought to River City, some fundamental truths remained the same. Though the town seemed at least ten times as lively as it had been last year at this time, the townspeople, and Mrs. Shinn and her ladies in particular, still found their chief day-to-day entertainment in the observation of other people.

Certainly being proven wrong in one particular instance had not purged them of their natural taste for gossip – which shopkeeper was throwing away his profits on drink or which teenagers displayed a distasteful affinity for rowdy dancing were topics that roused great interest among the group. In the fashion of hens, who will peck violently even at each other when they sense blood, the ladies were not above slyly criticizing the actions of their own, either. Marian and Ethel, as newlyweds, were particularly easy targets when it came to snickering about bedroom matters (which, though any one of the ladies would have died before admitting it, were the most fascinating matters of all). But there had been no truly enormous scandal until the arrival of Mrs. Appleton, and the ladies were only too eager to see the young woman as the ignominious symbol of shameless immorality that they had been missing these past months.

Though, Marian noticed with a kind of dark satisfaction, they had seemingly retained at least one lesson – none of the charges levied against the new English teacher involved her books.

xxx

After her initial panic, Marian was able to pull herself together enough to go about the rest of her day, although she couldn't shake the heavy feeling of helplessness. Everywhere she went, she worried that she would run into a hurt and accusing Nellie – and yet she was disappointed when she did not come across her so that she might warn her and set things right.

She tried to be cheerful and lighthearted with Harold so he would not suspect that anything was wrong, but her husband knew her too well. Almost as soon as he walked in the door, he wanted to know if she was feeling all right when she did not greet him with her usual enthusiasm, and as much as she tried to reassure him that she felt fine, he watched her with concern all evening. It was hard for her to do something as simple as talk with him about her day without betraying her emotional upset, but Harold didn't push her into talking.

But as Marian sat across from him in the parlor that evening, poring over a new book she had ordered for the library, _Ethan Frome_ (and deeming that no would-be censors would have any objections to this book, as the adulterers were punished with a suitably miserable fate), she rather wished that Harold would demand to know what had happened so that she wouldn't have to figure out how to broach the subject herself. When she realized that she was reading the same sentence over and over again, she at last sighed heavily and dropped the thin volume on the end table.

"Harold, I've been lying to you," she groaned, ashamed. "There _is_ something wrong, and there has been all day. I just – I didn't want to just complain to you –"

"Darling, of course you should tell me," Harold insisted, laying the newspaper aside and leaning forward in his chair with his brow knitted in concern. "Are you feeling ill?"

"No, it's nothing like that. You'll remember, I had a meeting with Mrs. Shinn and the ladies today, and something _happened_ –"

Before she could even finish speaking, Harold had crossed the room to join her on the couch and wrap an arm around her, looking almost predatory in his protectiveness. "They didn't say anything about you, did they?" he asked, his voice low and urgent.

"No, not me..." Marian couldn't help but give him a small smile, and she patted his hand, which was currently resting on her shoulder.. "And it's always nice to know that you'd be so quick to defend me, dear. But it's true that they did say something about somebody else. Harold, they're talking about Mrs. Appleton. Nellie."

She gazed into her lap, nervously tracing the pattern on her skirt with a fingernail.

"I feel wrong even repeating this, and maybe I shouldn't – but please know that it's not my intention to spread rumors – and of course I don't believe any of it either. The ladies have judged poor Mrs. Appleton to be unfit to associate with. They're saying things about how – how, you know, she doesn't have a husband but she has a child and she's going to have another – they're saying things like, well, that she never _was_ married, that she's a shameless woman who's come to River City to chase after men. Of course, it's nothing but hateful slander. I can't sit by and let them hurt her the way that they hurt me, but I don't know what I can do to stop them!"

Grateful for her husband's strong presence, Marian leaned into his arms, eyes brimming with tears of shame and frustration.

"Well, what did you say to them when they said these things?" Harold asked as he gently smoothed the hair from her forehead.

"Not enough," Marian sighed. "I'm so ashamed of myself, but I was afraid – afraid that I would lose all the respect I'd gained with them and they'd believe horrible things about me again. It's terribly selfish of me, I know."

"I don't think it would be that easy to lose their favor. However they treated you before, they admire you now, and they'd listen to you as much as they would to anybody else, right?" Harold reasoned, trying his best to encourage her.

"One might think that, but it's remarkably difficult to get them to listen to _anybody_ when they're caught up in the thrill of a brand new scandal – not to mention getting them over all that Iowa stubbornness. By the time you cleared my name, they'd already had years to enjoy shaming me, and the excitement of everything that happened when you came to town was a lot more interesting than the same old gossip. I hope it wouldn't take such drama to get them to change their minds about Nellie!" Marian paused and looked up into Harold's eyes, silently imploring his understanding. "But the worst part is that I'm just so afraid. Listen to me, making excuses. I have to _say_ something, because that's what I wish somebody would have done for me. I just don't want to say the wrong thing – if I do, they might not give me a chance to say anything else.

"The only thing I could think of that would be guaranteed make them stop is for them to learn the truth, as they did about me – but it shouldn't be necessary for a woman to go around trumpeting her life story to the whole world just to earn a little respect. Besides, even _I_ don't know what the woman's true situation is, and she's talked to me a good deal more than anybody else in this town!"

Harold's expression turned thoughtful. "I think the problem runs deeper than the question of what is true and what is not. Even if her true situation were less than honorable – even if it were exactly as the ladies said – would it make a difference?"

At that suggestion Marian bristled and sat up straighter, her hazel eyes flashing heatedly at her husband. "Just what are you doing? Do you just want to agitate me? I mean, _what_ purpose –"

"Let's say I'm playing devil's advocate. Would it make a difference?"

The librarian drew back, her eyes widening. "Well, yes. Then their accusations would not be unfounded – it wouldn't be _slander_."

"I know what you mean, but what I'm trying to say is – nobody should treat another person like that, no matter what they've done."

"I agree," Marian responded slowly. "But I am _certain_ that Mrs. Appleton is better than that! At least, I must give her the benefit of the doubt."

"As you should," Harold affirmed. "I know I wish I'd been decent enough to do that with _you_. But – hypothetically, remember – if there _were_ a woman in River City who'd made mistakes, who'd done immoral things, would she deserve such hatred? I suppose this is just coming from a man who wishes the world had been a little kinder to his mother."

Marian raised her eyebrows – it was very rarely that Harold talked about his childhood, and though he had occasionally alluded to the difficulties that his mother had been through, she still did not know the story of the woman who had raised him. "What about your mother?" she asked carefully, trying not to sound like she was pressing him for further information but hoping desperately that he would give it.

Harold leaned back into the sofa and pulled Marian snugly against him, as if he needed her close to him for reassurance. "It's just that... I've seen what that kind of hatred can do to a woman. I know I haven't told you a lot about my mother, but you have to understand what it was like for her. From what I know about her – what she told me and what I heard and read about her after she died – she came from a wealthy, well-connected family in upstate New York, and she never would have had to lift a finger in her life if things hadn't blown up the way they did. She got caught up in a week-long affair with an older man who she never saw again, and she found out she was pregnant with me when she was seventeen and unmarried. When no society gentleman would step up to marry her in the face of her disgrace, her parents threw her right out – told their friends some flimsy pretext that she had gone off to Europe – and there was hardly a soul in the world that would help her from that day onward.

"My mother worked as a maid in cheap hotels and the kinds of houses that wouldn't have stepped foot in when she was a debutante. She deflected some of the shame of having a son by pretending to be a widow, but on her wages she wasn't ever going to be able to scrape together the funds for something as frivolous as a wedding ring, and plenty of people caught on to her lie. My mother ran from New York all the way to Maryland, and even there they talked about her, called her a scarlet woman. People enjoyed feeling superior to her – it made them feel better about their own sins. They spun her situation into something even worse than it already was – a good deal of people believed that she was a prostitute, and nobody wanted to be seen with her. I don't ever remember her having a single real friend, there was no one in her life except a son that she tried her best to shelter, and I suppose at some point it all became too much to take. I was seventeen years old when she – she took her own life."

"No," Marian gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh, Harold, I never – I never imagined –" Utterly at a loss for words, the librarian simply leaned her head on her husband's shoulder, wishing that she knew how to comfort him. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "Now I understand why you haven't – talked about her so much."

Her music professor turned to face her again, a smile on his lips despite the hint of pain in his eyes. "Maybe I should. Maybe it's better for her memory if I talk about her sometimes. She was your mother-in-law, so I think you should know about her... after all, you've told me about your father. Her name was Lucille Weatherby Esposito. 'Weatherby' was the name of her aristocratic New York family; 'Esposito' was the name of my so-called father. She changed it – so people might believe that they had been married."

She felt her heart skip a beat as she realized the significance of what he was telling her. "So you were – your birth name was Esposito?"

Harold nodded and continued, the words falling out as though he were powerless to stop them. "She named me 'Anthony'. She told me I looked like my father, but that I had her hair. I never even knew what my father's first name was, never mind what he looked like, yet I carried his last name around with me. I had about six or seven different names after that, of course, when I got into the kind of business that calls for aliases, but for the first twenty years of my life, I was Anthony Weatherby Esposito."

Marian was awed at what he had unexpectedly revealed to her, and she studied Harold's face as she tried to reconcile the unfamiliar name with the man she knew so well. As she considered how to process this revelation, the librarian was greatly relieved that she could hold onto his promise that he never wanted to be anyone but Harold Hill – there was no chance that she could ever call him by any other name, even if she _had_ become accustomed to Marcellus calling him "Greg".

"I can't imagine you being _Anthony_ – or me being Mrs. Esposito," Marian stammered, still reeling from the sudden influx of information.

"Neither can I, anymore," her husband replied, kissing her forehead tenderly. "That might as well have been a different life – two lives ago, really. But _some_ things haven't changed since then, clearly. I'm not saying that scandal and gossip killed my mother or anything, but it certainly didn't help. So, yes, Mrs. Appleton needs a friend to protect her from those rumors – and if what they say about her _is_ true, then she needs a friend even more."

With the story of Lucille laid out in front of her, Marian was suddenly, pitifully aware of her own moral failings as she realized that she very likely would have, at least in her own mind, been one of those who looked down upon a poor maid with an illegitimate child; though she knew it was wrong of her, her instincts still led her to be scornful.

"I wish it were that easy for me not to judge. I worry that I'm not very open-minded, as much as I've tried to be. It's all wrapped up in something – complicated."

"I'd hardly call you closed-minded. You've accepted _me_ in spite of my past, haven't you?"

"That's true, but you'd already changed. I know you feel remorse for what you've done, and you renounced it all for me. What about accepting the kind of person who doesn't feel bad about what he's – she's – done, even if it wasn't right?" Feeling a little disheartened, she settled her cheek against her hand. "I've just realized – oh, and please don't take offense, but – I think that people who have been bad in the past and know what it's like – well, such as _you_ , sometimes do a better job of being good than the self-righteous moralizing types! I know what I think I believe, what I _should_ believe – 'judge not lest ye be judged', 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' – but how often have I practiced what I preach? We take the privilege of judging as our reward for our morality – we think we haven't sinned, so we _do_ throw the first stone – which is a sin in itself, and we don't even realize it! And though I might not be so cruel, I'm afraid I'm no better than the rest of the ladies in that. I do think I could be friends with Nellie even if she'd done wrong, but if she really were a 'shameless woman', like all the ladies say – if she didn't even feel _bad_ about it, well, I don't think I could help feeling superior. Oh, it's all too much to think about! I'll never be as good as I should be."

As ever, Harold was a steadying presence when she needed one. "You'll do your best, and that will be more than good enough. Marian, you may be the most wonderful woman I've ever met, but even I don't expect you to be _perfect_."

She was able to relax a little as his reassuring words soothed her fretful mind, and she reflected, with great affection, that she was very lucky to have a husband who complemented her so well and understood her so completely. "Thank you for always being there for me, Harold. You're so different from me in just the right ways – sometimes just hearing your perspective on things can cheer me up." She kissed him gently, absentmindedly toying with the knot of his tie as she did so. "I'd drive myself crazy from thinking too much if it weren't for you!"

Laughing, the music professor tightened his arms around her waist. "Hey, now, I'm not sure if that was a compliment!"

"Yes, it was," she assured him with a smile. Though her problems were far from solved, she felt, for the moment, perfectly content just to have the man she loved and who loved her in return by her side, knowing that he would support her no matter what. Well, maybe not _just_ by her side... after all the stress and frustration of the day, she thought that she could use the sort of distraction that her husband happened to specialize in. Spurred by a mischievous impulse, Marian deftly pulled off his tie and tossed it aside before maneuvering herself to straddle his lap and reaching for the buttons of his collar, giving him a teasing smile.

Harold grinned up at her, looking very pleased and slightly shocked at the sudden turn that their conversation had taken. "Marian, what are you doing?" he inquired, his voice unsteady with desire and anticipation.

"Here I thought that would be obvious enough... didn't I tell you that I was tired of thinking?"

After that, neither one of them did much thinking for a very long time.

xxx

Even before Marian had an opportunity to call on Nellie Appleton again, she was afforded the chance to speak intimately with Ethel Washburn. The following day, Marcellus invited the Hills to join him and his wife on a picnic in the countryside – for the occasion, he had even procured the exciting luxury of a motorcar from the livery.

As delightful as the trip promised to be, Marian recognized the gravity the opportunity it presented – it was absolutely vital that she learned Ethel's opinion of the other ladies' condemnation of Mrs. Appleton. During the chaos that had occurred at the committee meeting, Marian had gazed beseechingly at Ethel, hoping that the other woman would prove a staunch ally as ever. Thankfully Ethel had not contributed any slanderous remarks to the discussion – but she also had not met the librarian's eyes, instead giggling nervously along with the other ladies. Still, in the time since Marian had gotten to know them, Mrs. Washburn had always been the kindest and most trustworthy of the ladies, and she had also been the most remorseful over her past treatment of the librarian. Marian strongly suspected that Ethel would not support such injustice any more than she would, and if she were to have any hope of confronting the ladies, she would need to start out with at least one other lady on her side – if she were not the lone defender of the 'fallen woman', they would be far less likely to construe her sympathy as a symptom of personal immorality.

It was a glorious spring day – breezy, warm, but not hot, and the air aromatic with the scent of grass and flowers. Several miles out of the city, Marcellus parked the motorcar by a shady riverbank at the base of a rolling hill, where they disembarked and set up for their picnic.

As they sat on the blanket enjoying the lunch that Ethel had prepared for them, Marian felt the rebellious desire to lay back and gaze at the clouds floating by, though of course it would have been terribly improper to do so. Casting a glance at Harold, she decided that she might have to persuade him to bring her back here soon – this time, just the two of them.

Today, Marian was grateful for the company, however. As much as she did not want to spoil such a languidly blissful afternoon with talk of serious matters, she knew that today would be her only chance to speak with Ethel without fear of any others intruding. All through the afternoon she waited patiently for a chance to get Ethel alone, and she finally got it when Marcellus asked "Greg" if he might like to learn about the inner workings of a motorcar.

While Harold and Marcellus went off together to examine the vehicle, Marian and Ethel walked down to the water to chat and gaze out at the miles of farmland and prairie that stretched before them. The stream flowed cool and clear, and minnows darted through the water as small silvery flashes. The librarian was again struck by a childish desire, this time to run barefoot through the water – something about being miles away from civilized society made her feel wild and free, knowing that out here her every action would not be open for judgment. Yes, she was definitely going to have to see about coming back here with Harold alone so she could act as foolishly as she pleased.

It seemed like a betrayal of the carefree occasion to push her concerns on Ethel, and Marian was unsure how to tactfully bring up the subject. After a few minutes of idle conversation, however, it occurred to the librarian that if she didn't say something soon, she might lose her chance – so the moment that Ethel casually mentioned the bake sale, Marian seized upon the opportunity to speak.

"Ethel, I haven't been able to stop thinking about what happened at the meeting yesterday," she confessed at last. "I think the ladies didn't learn nearly enough from what they did to me – I'm afraid they're going to ruin poor Mrs. Appleton's life in River City!"

She watched the other woman's expression carefully as she spoke, hoping to get an idea of her reaction. Marian was cautiously optimistic to see that Ethel appeared neither confrontational nor indifferent, but a little worried.

"I've felt bad about it, too," admitted Ethel. "I know that I do get a little too caught up in all this gossip sometimes. I suppose it's an old habit, but – I know I shouldn't." She nervously spun her straw hat around and around in her hands. "It's just that there's not an awful lot to talk about other than what people are getting up to, or at least what it looks like they're up to. It seems so harmless at the time, and then I remember how awful it feels to be on the other side of it – of course, you know that better than I do. To think that I never really would have gotten to know you if they'd continued to shun you the way they did, well, it's just terrible! And I think they're making a horrible mistake if they plan to start the whole thing all over with another lady. What makes them so sure that this time, they won't be wrong?"

The librarian nearly sighed in relief to learn that Ethel hadn't truly been taken in by the rumors this time. "You've known them for much longer than I have – do you think that there's any hope that they'll change their minds? I already know I can't convince them by myself."

Ethel frowned, gazing down at the water. "It won't be easy, no. They enjoy the whole scandal too much to give it up so easily. I think they'd have to get to know her before they'd feel bad about it – probably have to like her, too."

Groaning, Marian barely repressed the urge to bury her face in her hands. "But how on earth could that ever happen? They wouldn't have a thing to do with her, and I doubt Mrs. Appleton will be too willing to associate with them, either, once these rumors get back to her!"

"Well, I promise to be behind you in whatever you say or do to stop them. If they keep carrying on like this, it'll be all of us with the bad reputation – and we'll deserve it."

It was just what the librarian had been hoping to hear from her – the same truth that she had realized after her conversation with Harold . "That's it exactly, Ethel!" Marian exclaimed. "That's what all the rest of them need to realize – that the most shameful thing anybody is doing in River City is their behaving like this."

"Hey there, Ethel!" The two women turned to see Marcellus waving at them from the picnic blanket. "When are we all gonna get to see that dessert you told me you packed?"

"Right now, honey!" his wife crowed with a giggle before turning back to Marian. "It's a little preview of what I'm making for the bake sale... hmm, what do you suppose would happen if Mrs. Appleton just showed up at the bake sale? Might give them a chance to see that she's not so bad, after all."

"It sounds like a potential disaster," the librarian admitted. "For her own sake, I hope she doesn't – although Mrs. Shinn has done such a good job of advertising it that it sounds like just about every woman in town is going to attend!"

"Well, if she does, I hope we're there when it happens and they can see – they can see that at least the two of us are willing to treat her like a human being," said Ethel, placing her hat back on her head with a resolute flourish. "And maybe before long we'll discover that it's not just the two of us."

With Ethel Washburn as her ally, Marian was quickly becoming more certain that they could and would stop these rumors before they went too far – and that she really did have at least one true and loyal friend among the ladies.


	3. The Cookie Crumbles

In the following week, Marian saw Nellie Appleton in the library twice, but the circumstances never permitted them to communicate beyond a friendly smile and wave. Although Marian was pleased to see that Mrs. Appleton showed no outward signs of distress – and that she was not deliberately avoiding her – it was frustrating not to know how far the rumors had spread. Mrs. Appleton might have still been in blissful ignorance of the scandal that threatened to erupt around her, or she might have been deeply troubled and in need of counsel, but there was no way that Marian could detect the difference.

The surest sign that the rumors were becoming an epidemic would be when Marian heard them back from a person who generally had no interest in the doings of the ladies. While Mrs. Appleton browsed the shelves, the librarian's eyes darted around covertly for signs of pointing fingers and heads bowed in conspiratorial conversation at the tables; she breathed a sigh of relief when she could confirm that the giggles of teenage girls were, in fact, directed at Walt Whitman's poetry. This was, she realized, the same nervous routine that she had enacted thousands of times when _she_ had been the target of the rumors, a routine that made her suspicious and jumpy and distant. Marian could tell that some of the patrons were starting to look askance at _her_ now that she had developed this habit of regressing to her aloof, pre-Harold self. It was unpleasant to think of herself that way, and she feared that she would repel the townspeople who were finally starting to think of her as approachable.

Yet despite all her watchfulness, there was still no indication whether not the rumors had ever made it out of the Hix's stuffy parlor.

On Thursday night, after the conclusion of Milly's lesson, the librarian and the English teacher finally had an opportunity to talk for a few minutes while Milly sat at the piano, practicing. While their conversation that night was rather hurried and mundane, Mrs. Appleton did say one thing that gave Marian pause.

"You are a member of the Ladies' Events Committee, aren't you, Mrs. Hill?" Nellie asked, her fingers tapping absentmindedly against her throat.

Marian prayed that she did not look unduly shocked at the inquiry. "Yes, I am. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, that's good that I was right – it seems that there are several Ladies' Committees in this town and I forgot which one you were on – they're running that bake sale next week, is that true?" She did not wait for a reply. "I thought I might stop by there if I get a chance. It might've been nice to bake something, I guess, but I'm so busy this time of year."

A million words that she knew it would be unwise to say seemed to well up on Marian's tongue, but she managed to hold them back and utter a simple, "It would be nice to see you there." But as soon as she said it, Marian knew that it would make her a poor friend to send Nellie off with such an insipid sentiment while she had it in her power to warn her about what might be coming. If only she knew how much the woman had already heard, if anything! Despite the necessity of warning Mrs. Appleton, the librarian felt that it would be unimaginably rude and insensitive to be the first one to inform her of what the ladies had said.

Needing to make it clear where she stood on the issue while avoiding specificity, Marian suddenly found herself blurting, "I don't know if you've met the mayor's wife or her – um, or the wives of the school board, but they can be rather _abrasive_. If they've said anything, if they say anything, you mustn't take it to heart."

For a moment a hint of worry passed across Nellie's face, her dark eyebrows lowering, and she bit her lip as if about to say something – but then at the same moment, the two women noticed that the music had stopped and Milly was standing in the doorframe, looking at her mother questioningly.

Apparently amending whatever she had been planning to say, Mrs. Appleton nodded and gave Marian a tight smile that was impossible for her to interpret. "I think that I should be able to manage. Thank you for sharing your concerns, though. Milly, are you ready to go home now?"

After seeing the Appletons out, Marian leaned against the door in defeat, pressing her hand against her eyes. As much as she wanted to be a champion for Mrs. Appleton, there was only so much she could do to influence the outcome of this fiasco. She didn't know anything that gave her any particular advantage in clearing the woman's name – she didn't even know if Nellie wanted any help, and to broach the subject either with her or with the ladies would shatter the fragile propriety that kept such matters contained. But, then, maybe it was better to cross that line herself for noble purposes than to wait for somebody else to do it out of spite...

Still, Marian had spent enough time in her life agonizing over various matters to know that obsessive thought did not accomplish anything. In the end, she had to trust that the opportunity to act would present itself, as it had when Harold had asked her to the footbridge on the night of the sociable and given her the chance to make the confession that had changed them both forever. Eventually, she believed, God would provide her with the moment she needed to make things right – and this time Marian would make sure that she'd be bold enough to seize it.

xxx

Because of the increasingly warm weather, the Events Committee had decided that they would attract the most customers if they held the bake sale outdoors, and fortunately the early May weather obliged them on the day of the event. After a substantial effort the first shift of ladies had managed to set up three tables on the downtown green and bedeck them with an impressive amount of sweets, with others scheduled to be delivered over the course of the day so they would not sit too long in the sun. A couple of the ladies had even taken it upon themselves to create a splendid, eye-catching banner which they suspended between two trees, certain to catch the eyes of pedestrians if the tables full of goodies did not.

Marian arrived at one o'clock to both deliver her tray of fudge and relieve Mrs. Grubb of her duties. Although she couldn't be certain, it appeared from the many missing slices and half-emptied trays as well as the several passers-by inspecting the wares that the sale had been going along quite well. The revitalization provided by the arrival of the second shift made the tables appear even more enticing, and the librarian made her first sale within minutes of taking her place behind a table.

For a woman who had spent years allowing patrons to take out books in exchange for nothing but the promise that they would be returned, it felt a little strange to be handed money – once or twice she felt her hand instinctively groping for a stamp when a customer arrived at the table. But there was a certain sense of accomplishment to being able to place coins in the little tin box at the center table and watch their profits grow – even if it wasn't entirely clear to her what the money was for. It was also interesting how many of the townspeople were willing to chat with her as they made their purchases, some of them asking after her mother or Harold or the band, something which they never would have dared to do in the library. Between the lovely weather, the surprising success of the sale, the friendliness of the customers, and the opportunities to chat with Ethel as they worked a table together, Marian found herself in high spirits and reflected that perhaps this was not such a painful way to spend a day as she had worried it might be.

Gradually, more and more of the space on the tables was filled by a new set of desserts, and Marian noted that she was finally beginning to recognize many of the committee member's friends and family from the various events they had attended – she correctly identified Mrs. Squire's sister-in-law and Mrs. Dunlop's friendly neighbor when they dropped off their contributions, for instance. But one lady, who greeted Mrs. Hix with such strident enthusiasm that it attracted the attention of everybody in the general area, was somebody that Marian could not place.

"Good afternoon, Alma!" the woman exclaimed, her voice more than a little shrill. "I was just so excited about today – I think town beautification is just such an important cause! As is baking, of course. So a bake sale that will raise money to beautify the town is just the very thing we need!"

Uncharacteristically, Mrs. Hix looked a little frazzled at this salutation, and she seemed almost to back away slightly. "Yes, hello, Mrs. Lloyd," she responded, making no attempt to match the other woman's zeal.

Mrs. Hattie Lloyd was known only to Marian as the wife of a doctor she had never seen and the subject of a few rumors about hair dye. Even a passing glance at the woman's brassy, straw-like coiffure seemed to confirm the accusation, but evidently the unnatural state of Mrs. Lloyd's follicles, unlike Mrs. Appleton's suspected transgression, was not immoral enough to taint her baked goods (or maybe it was, considering the horror stories that the ladies had recounted about them!) Still, the ladies had needed somebody to round out their selection of bakers, and Mrs. Lloyd was an enthusiastic cook, if a poor one. She arrived with not one, but two of her fabled confections in tow – the expected strawberry rhubarb pie and a white-frosted cake that might have looked delicious if Ethel had not been staring at it with such haunted eyes.

"Whatever you do, don't eat her cake," Ethel whispered in Marian's ear as quietly as she possibly could. "I had a slice of that at a church dinner once – she called it vanilla, but all I tasted was baking powder!"

"Mightn't it be a little dishonest to sell it?" Marian whispered back, trying desperately not to laugh. Although Harold's influence had rubbed off on her in many ways, she was no con woman – how could she advertise those products to unsuspecting customers?

Ethel shrugged and wrinkled her nose. "Either way, somebody gets hurt, and I suppose they'd rather serve a bit of lousy cake than hurt Mrs. Lloyd's feelings."

The bizarre code of etiquette followed by these ladies continued to make Marian's head spin. Heaven forbid they offend a woman's delicate sensibilities over a simple matter that was actually true, but all kinds of wicked speculation behind her back was entirely permissible!

Though she was not even a member of the Events Committee, Hattie Lloyd quickly and forcefully insinuated herself behind the table occupied by Mrs. Dunlop and Mrs. Hix and began peddling baked goods with gusto. It appeared to Marian that Mrs. Lloyd was trying to curry favor with the members in order to gain herself a place on the committee, a possibility that the librarian already regarded as distinctly unappealing.

Indeed, Mrs. Lloyd was managing to make herself more enemies than friends as she darted from table to table, surreptitiously tasting as many items as she could and offering unsolicited criticism, sometimes in the presence of customers. She didn't necessarily restrict her comments to baking, either – she took whatever opportunity she could to generously dispense her advice, from recommending Ethel several catalogs in which she might find clothes that were "more flattering to her figure" to reassuring Mrs. Dunlop that she really _could_ look quite handsome, if she would only _smile_ more.

It didn't take long at all before the ladies were regarding her with barely-concealed disdain, the festive atmosphere of the day utterly dampened. Marian felt a little guilty indulging in their mutual dislike of a woman who'd done almost nothing to her (with the exception of informing her that it really wasn't ideal for a married woman to work, now was it?), and she _had_ recently resolved herself to become less judgmental... She carefully considered Mrs. Lloyd as a person, searching for some quality to admire or empathize with.

_She clearly enjoys baking... and she thinks herself very smart._ No, that wouldn't do...

"Hello there, Mrs. Hill!" called a soft, familiar voice, cutting into her thoughts.

Just across the street, a tall, thin figure gave a small, shy wave of her fingers. Wearing a simple cream blouse and brown skirt, perhaps because she had just come from school, Nellie looked more ordinary than Marian had ever seen her, especially in the presence of the artificial Hattie Lloyd. As usual, Milly Appleton was holding tightly to her mother's arm, but even she looked less frightfully anxious than usual, taking in the treats before her with wide, eager eyes.

"Can we go there, Ma?" Milly gasped, nearly standing on tiptoe with excitement.

Smiling at her daughter, Mrs. Appleton patted her hand. " _May_ we, Milly – Yes, we may, that's where we're going now, in fact."

For a moment, Marian felt a twinge of fear as she imagined what could ensue if Mrs. Appleton received a cold reception from the ladies, and she glanced around, trying to see if any of them had already noticed her presence. It appeared that they were otherwise occupied, however, as quite a few customers were browsing at their tables. Feeling relieved, and grateful for another friendly face after hours of listening to Mrs. Lloyd's prattle, Marian beamed at her friend as she approached.

"Hello, Mrs. Appleton!"

"Good afternoon!" Ethel called as she hastily pushed a few plates around to form the most pleasing arrangement possible.

Nellie fluttered birdlike up to the table, her pale cheeks pinkened by the sun despite her wide-brimmed hat. She looked momentarily cowed when Ethel smiled at her, and she returned the smile with a little bite of her lip. Her eyes roved over the selection just as avidly as her daughters', and she tapped her forefingers together in thought.

"Oh, those danishes do look wonderful... do you have any recommendations, Mrs. Hill, Mrs., um..."

"Ethel Washburn," Ethel offered helpfully.

"...Mrs. Washburn?" Mrs. Appleton finished, looking a bit more at ease now that Ethel had proven not to be terribly intimidating.

After Marian and Ethel had thoroughly explained all of the baked goods on their table and what one could expect to find at the other two – tactfully glossing over the nature of Mrs. Lloyd's contributions – Nellie thanked them and wandered off to peruse the selection.

"She seems like a nice lady," Ethel whispered. "Quiet as she is, I don't see how anybody could think she's capable of doing _anything_ brazen."

Although she didn't want to be caught staring, Marian couldn't help but watch closely as Mrs. Appleton approached the furthest table where Mrs. Squires was working. Mrs. Squires seemed to greet her as amiably as any other customer, so maybe there was not going to be a problem, after all.

In a few moments, anyway, the librarian's attention was entirely occupied by an elderly woman who had arrived with a litany of questions about every item on the table. Even if she had wanted to continue observing what was happening at the other tables, it was simply impossible under such an interrogation.

As they spoke, however, a severe yet oddly cloying voice caught Marian's ear, and she turned in time to witness a sight that filled her with dread – a tiny black-haired girl reaching for an oatmeal cookie directly under the hawkish gaze of Hattie Lloyd.

"Those are for sale, little girl," Mrs. Lloyd clucked, her voice overflowing with the syrupy condescension that unpleasant people use when speaking to children. "You can't just take one – why don't you ask your mother to buy it for you?"

Milly Appleton froze where she stood, the oatmeal cookie still in her hand. "I – I – I didn't –" she stuttered, taking a step back from the table and cringing as though she had been struck.

With less care than she would have been proud to take, Marian began to hurriedly wrap up the old woman's order, needing to be free to intervene if it became necessary. She knew Milly well enough to know that the girl had to be dealt with very gently, and there was nothing gentle about the way Mrs. Lloyd was towering over her now, arms folded across her bosom.

" _Look_ at me, please!" Mrs. Lloyd ordered with an imperious jab of her finger, her honey-sweet façade abruptly shattered. "You cannot take that cookie!"

The girl's small hand only closed more tightly around the cookie, and she stared down at it, trembling. Still negotiating with Mrs. Squires over a piece of coffee cake several yards away, her mother took no notice of what was happening. Marian felt her blood run cold in her veins – she could tell what was going to happen, and she had to stop it before it was too late. Hoping in vain that she would not attract too much attention to herself, the librarian strode briskly over to the center table to see what she could say to dissuade Mrs. Lloyd from her course.

"Mrs. Lloyd," she pleaded inarticulately, "This isn't the right way to handle this – her mother, Mrs. Appleton, is right over there, if you'd just –" But she was barely given a chance to speak, as her feeble pleas did not even register over the woman's mounting anger.

"You know, it's terribly rude not to look at an adult who is talking to you," Mrs. Lloyd blustered with righteous indignation. It seemed that she had heard at least something of what Marian had said, for she turned to face Nellie at the next table and bellowed, "Mrs. Appleton, do you know how your daughter is behaving?"

For a single, painful moment, Milly stood stiff and straight, gazing at something unseen in the distance with her eyes huge and her lower lip trembling uncontrollably, before her face crumpled, and she fell to her knees, weeping. All at once, the bake sale was brought to a grinding halt by the unexpected and unsettling spectacle. While most of the ladies and customers looked on in sympathy, some appeared more appalled at this breach in decorum than anything else – particularly Mrs. Lloyd, who continued to stare hard-eyed at the crying child even as her mother ran to take her in her arms.

"Now, Mrs. Appleton, you ought to scold her, not coddle her! It's a spoiled child who thinks that throwing a tantrum will solve all her problems –"

"Oh, just _stop_!" Nellie cried out in a voice that was louder and more confident than any that Marian had ever heard her use, her eyes flashing with fury. It seemed that some primal motherly instinct had been roused in the gentle woman, transforming her entirely – it was like watching a mother bear come to the defense of her cub. "You're the one who ought to be ashamed, making a little girl cry! She doesn't understand, don't you see that?" Rising on unsteady feet, she clasped her daughter tightly to her side and held her chin high. "All I've ever done is try to keep her safe. You can say whatever you want about me – you can tear me down if you want – but I won't ever let _anyone_ tell her that she has to change, not after –"

She swallowed the end of the sentence with a quick shake of her head. Fumbling hurriedly in her purse and removing a quarter, Nellie slapped it onto the table in front of Mrs. Lloyd, making several of the ladies jump back. "I'll pay for that cookie, and more – anything for you to leave us alone." Her voice faltering as tears choked her, she turned on her heel and took the still-shaking Milly by the hand before walking hastily down the street and around the corner.

The terrible silence of the aftermath might have gone on forever if Mrs. Lloyd had not been so eager to have the last word.

"Well, I never! What an extraordinary display," she sniffed. "Such utter disrespect runs in the family, I suppose. I don't know how you can _stand_ to teach that girl, Mrs. Hill!"

For a moment, the librarian could only blink at the woman in disbelief. "I find that not shouting at her tends to work wonders," Marian responded quietly. She knew as she said it that she might be willfully destroying her chances of coming away from this encounter unscathed, but she was too distraught at this point to feign deferential politeness for the sake of propriety.

Mrs. Lloyd remained surprisingly unruffled by this rejection, choosing instead to look elsewhere for the validation she required. "Now, you must admit her behavior was unacceptable. Goodness, just taking that cookie, thinking she could get away with it as long as she didn't look me in the eyes!'" she proclaimed in the general direction of several other ladies.

"I don't think that it's quite sporting to be celebrating your victory over a child," Ethel chimed in, her nose wrinkling just in the way it had earlier when she had recalled the baking-powder cake.

At that, Mrs. Lloyd very nearly threw up her hands in frustration, and she mustered her loftiest Upstanding Citizen voice for her next declaration. "Her _mother_ is a grown woman who should know better."

"Well, it's true that Mrs. Appleton's behavior was rather shocking, but I must admit, if anyone had brought one of my children to tears, I'd have done much the same thing," Mrs. Hix conceded. "It's only natural for a mother to come to her child's defense."

"I did raise five children, so don't – don't try to tell me that I don't know how a child should be disciplined!" Mrs. Lloyd's voice was rising with every word, her anger winning out over her poise. "I think she has some nerve to just go parading that misbegotten child all over town like she has a right to it – and then to admit that she just _refuses_ to let the poor thing take a scolding when she behaves like a little animal!"

Marian could feel a fearful boldness growing within her. Although Mrs. Lloyd was practically a stranger, she knew that it would be easier in many ways to confront this woman than a lady with whom she had any existing rapport – and though she knew it wasn't the least bit polite or proper, she wanted justice. Nellie Appleton had done nothing to deserve such a reprimand, but Hattie Lloyd certainly had, and maybe it was time to turn the tables. Though she spoke directly to Mrs. Lloyd, the librarian wanted to make sure that all of the ladies would understand her message.

"With all due respect, Mrs. Lloyd, you don't know the first thing about Mrs. Appleton. You don't know what her life is like, you don't know why she said what she did today – and you don't know anything more than what you've been told."

Although the other ladies looked taken aback by this outburst, Mrs. Lloyd's expression was still one of smug superiority as she asked Marian, "Do _you_?"

_No, but that shouldn't matter,_ the librarian thought as she recalled that recent conversation with her husband. Though she had once feared a question like this, now the right words to say came to her easily.

"I know she's a human being who can feel, and so is her daughter. I know that it's a lot easier to push people away than to try to understand them. And I know how it feels when nobody is willing to stand by you. I have to go see if she's all right." Stepping back from the tables, Marian smoothed her skirt and gave a terse nod to the ladies. "The sale has been going very smoothly, so I believe that you all can get by without me for a few minutes."

Marian knew that the moment that she was out of earshot, she would be the focus of whatever conversation ensued, and she might not know for a while whether or not her reputation remained intact. But just now, she had to do what was right and hope there was enough goodness in these ladies' hearts that they wouldn't hate her for it.

"I'll hold down our table," said Ethel with a hesitant smile.

"Thank you, Ethel," Marian told her before she left the green and walked in the direction in which Mrs. Appleton had departed, hoping that she might still be able to catch her.

After a moment, Marian heard Ethel calling to the others, "Come on, let's get back to work! This is a bake sale, remember!" She smiled a little in gratitude – maybe reminding them of their duties wouldn't allow the bake sale to dissolve completely into chaos and gossip. For now, Marian couldn't think about what they might say about her – she had to find Nellie. Although the librarian wasn't sure where she was going, she recognized that she was walking along Heather Street, in the general direction of the Appletons' house – which certainly seemed to be a sensible location to search for her.

xxx

When Marian arrived at the doorstep of the modest pale-blue house that she'd visited several times in the past few weeks, she finally hesitated. It might be a terribly rash decision to intrude upon a woman in such a precarious emotional state, especially after she had made the specific request to be left alone. And the librarian might not prove to be the most comforting presence seeing as she had been indirectly involved in the events that had led to this catastrophe.

So, as much as she longed to help her friend, Marian deemed, with her hand halfway to the doorbell, that as frustrating as it might feel, now was not the right time for action. At least, not this kind of action – perhaps it would be more beneficial for her to go back to the bake sale and address the ladies...

As she descended the wooden steps of Mrs. Appleton's porch, Marian was startled to hear the sound of a doorknob turning behind her and the door creaking open. Blushing furiously with guilt at having been caught, she whirled around to face Nellie, her heart pounding as she searched frantically for an explanation.

Nellie, with her face blotchy from tears and loose tendrils of her black hair fluttering wildly in the breeze, seemed to look the part of a betrayed woman who was fully prepared to disavow Marian's attempts at kindness and bid her to never show her face at this house again. For the first time, it was Marian who shrank in the presence of this woman, feeling inclined to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness that she did not expect to be granted.

_Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned!_

But, as the librarian opened her mouth to apologize, she closed it again almost immediately, surprised yet again by what she saw. There was a small, hesitant smile turning up the corners of Nellie's mouth.

"It's so good to see you, Miss Marian," she sighed, wearily brushing her bangs from her forehead. "Please, won't you come in?"


	4. Catharsis

The interior of the Appleton home was clean and welcoming, decorated in a rather rustic style, and often permeated by the pleasant aromas of baking. The furnishings were still sparse, indicating that the inhabitants had only moved in recently – today, that made Marian a little uneasy when she realized how simple it would be for Mrs. Appleton to pick up and leave River City if she wished to do so.

As Nellie took Marian's hat and hung it up on a hook by the front door, she indicated the direction of the parlor with a tilt of her head.

"We might want to talk in the kitchen – Milly's taken over the parlor, and there's no reason for me to disturb her for the time being."

Peering around the corner, Marian could see what her friend was talking about. Milly appeared placid by now, though her cheeks were still flushed from her crying. She lay sprawled on the floor of the parlor drawing with crayons on a sketchpad, an activity which utterly captivated the attention of her beloved black cat, who occasionally nuzzled Milly's hand and caused her to giggle.

"Oh, it's good to see that she's feeling all right," Marian said, relieved. "I was a little worried that the incident might have spoiled the entire day for both of you."

With a noncommittal shrug and a halfhearted smile, Nellie turned and walked briskly into the kitchen without a word – the librarian hesitated briefly, unsure if she was even being invited to follow. After a second of deliberation, she deemed that she had no other choice, and she moved to catch up.

Nellie sank into a chair, tapping her fingernails against the table in front of her. She turned to look at Marian almost as if surprised to see her there. "Please, sit down," she exclaimed. "I'm being a terrible hostess. I do have some cookies in the oven... it seemed the right thing to do after today's events. Maybe I should put on some tea."

As Marian sat down beside her, she could already see that Nellie had no intention of making tea or anything else; she seemed to be chattering mindlessly out of anxiety. From the way that her hands and eyes roved restlessly, it was evident that she _wanted_ to talk about something of greater substance, but probably could not find the words or the confidence to do so. Although Marian had found herself equally unable to address the taboo subject for weeks on end, she could suddenly see what she had to say with surprising clarity. She didn't need to mention anything about Nellie's situation herself; she just had to share her own story to let her know what an uncanny connection they shared when it came to rumors.

"You know, it's a strange thing," she began carefully. "This time last year, I was very close to alone in the world. I had only my mother and brother – no husband, no friends, only work, day in and day out. I couldn't have imagined being able to just call on a friend like this."

"Is that so?" Nellie had opened the sugar bowl and was stirring the contents rather manically with a spoon. "It looked to me like you're one of River City's most beloved citizens."

The librarian let out a light, rueful laugh. "I assure you, that has been a very recent development. For six years after we moved here, I was the town pariah for the simple reason that I dared to socialize with a man while unmarried – a man who was, for all intents and purposes, my _uncle_ – and, I suppose, because I dared to be more intelligent and erudite than anyone else in this town!" Reflexively Marian felt a pang of guilt at speaking so uncharitably of those who had since proved repentant, but she figured that their behavior toward Nellie justified this resurgence of bitter sentiment. "Six years when women would hardly speak to me out of contempt, when men leered at me in hopes of taking advantage of my alleged lack of morals. I was too proud to show it, but I was miserable, Nellie."

Feeling the need to stop herself before she allowed herself to get carried away by self-pity, and frankly a little choked up at reliving such an awful period in her life, Marian fell silent.

Nellie was watching her now, her brown eyes large with sympathy. "That must have been terrible. What happened to change things for you?"

"Harold," she admitted, her face coloring as she became conscious of how besotted she sounded. "I met Harold last July, and we were married in December – everything has changed so much since he came to River City. Not only for me, of course, but thanks to him, I went from being a melancholy old maid to... being happier than I ever imagined." It had not been her intention to conclude on such a blissful note, and it felt a little cruel to revel in her love in front of a woman who was so obviously troubled. Surprisingly, though, Mrs. Appleton looked genuinely happy to hear this ending to the story.

"Oh, that's so romantic," Nellie sighed. "I could tell how in love you two are just from the way that you look at each other, but to think that he changed your entire life like that!"

Well, that wasn't exactly the whole story, but Marian deemed that it would probably be best not to bring up the exact nature of how she had changed _his_ life. Thankfully, the subject did not come up, as Nellie had at last been spurred to talk about herself. She looked much more relaxed than she had when Marian had first arrived at the house, but her earlier anguish was creeping back into her expression.

"I still think you must have been so strong, to live like that for six years," she murmured. "I've always been too soft, myself. Maybe in time I'll grow myself a thicker skin. It doesn't help that – I have a vulnerability." Her eyes lit upon the small form of her daughter in the parlor. "I could bear just about any suffering, no matter how unhappy it would make me, but – to think of anything happening to her –" Nellie's hand slipped to her rounded belly "– to _them_ , well, I just can't allow that!"

Now Mrs. Appleton was trembling slightly, her face flushed with strong emotion. "I know they think I'm not a widow, but I never said I was, so I'm no liar. My husband is, as far as I know, alive and well. But – I know there are a lot of sordid reasons for a woman to leave her husband – but he gave me no choice!"

"For six years, I was married, but I might as well have been as alone as a spinster. It was never a happy marriage. Clyde Appleton and I were neighbors ever since we were babies, and all the adults around us used to joke that we'd get married someday. For whatever reason, when we were twenty, we did. I was so shocked and flattered that anybody would want to marry me, and I thought I'd be crazy to turn him down, because it wasn't as if anyone else had ever shown any interest. And Clyde – well, I'll never be sure why he thought we should marry. I've spent ages thinking about it and I still can't come up with an answer. Goodness knows that the word 'love' never came up between us, nor did the emotion – but we had always been good friends, and I was sure being married would be enough to make us love each other.

"As you can probably guess, it wasn't. That might have been bearable if he had at least been civil to me, but Clyde changed just as soon as we were wed. He had been so kind all through our engagement, so excited and optimistic about our impending life together, but it only took a day or so of marriage for him to lose all traces of his good nature. Now he seemed horribly panicked and upset all the time, as if he had realized that he'd made a dreadful mistake. It made me feel horrible about myself, and I was certain that I was failing somehow. So I did everything that I thought a good wife should do, spent all my time cooking and cleaning, and let him go where he pleased. He'd leave me for weeks at a time with no explanation, and I never said a word of complaint – but when he returned, it was as if he couldn't stand the sight of me. Yet in public, he made a great show of adoring me and flaunting how very happy we were. I felt as though I had entered into a marriage of convenience, although for _whose_ convenience, I didn't know.

"I was so very happy when I had Milly – I'd never imagined what it could be like to love and care about a person in that way. She brought some meaning back into my strange and confusing world. Even though he was still distant as ever with me, I know that Clyde loved her, too. He no longer seemed so resentful all the time – I think having a child was enough to prove to him that our marriage wasn't a complete failure. For a while, it felt as if we really had a happy marriage and it wasn't all just for show. Well, maybe not a happy _marriage_ – we still didn't love each other, after all – but a happy _family_."

Pausing, Nellie swallowed hard, her expression slightly pained. "His love for his daughter could only go so far, though. That is – it wasn't unconditional. For the first two years or so, Milly was the perfect little angel that he wanted her to be, but we soon realized that something was – different about her. Clyde wasn't happy about that in the least. He loved Milly only as far as she could be an charming, obedient little pet to be shown off at parties as proof of our domestic harmony. But now she would hardly even speak to us, let alone curtsy for strangers. I was worried for her, and I did my best to help her, to reach out to her – Clyde would only scold her and bark orders. He seemed more repulsed by _me_ than ever, but he also became intent that we must have another child, one who would be more fit to put on display.

"Soon he chose to simply ignore Milly for the most part, leaving the burden of caring for her entirely on me. It would have been difficult with any child, but with one as enigmatic as Milly, it was brutal. Clyde wouldn't even listen to me when I tried to talk about her, not even when she was suffering or upset. He would only acknowledge his daughter when she was entirely docile and sweet – which she rarely was in his presence, seeing as he'd done such a thorough job of making her afraid of him. The last straw came about six months ago, when he drove her into a tantrum in public. Yes, a lot like what happened today. Clyde was furious, both with Milly and with me for being unable to control her, and everybody saw it. His carefully-constructed 'perfect family' fell to pieces in front of all the people he'd been trying to impress.

"He didn't say a word to me until I'd put Milly to bed that night. I knew when he finally broke his silence, that it wouldn't be for anything good, but I had _no_ idea how bad it would be. Oh, it makes me ill to even think of it, but I have to tell somebody about this."

Trembling, Nellie gripped at the edge of the table, her knuckles white. "My husband told me that he'd had enough of putting up with 'that child'. Said it just like that, like she wasn't even his. He said that he'd been counting on her to grow out of her oddities, but that it was – that it was clear now that she wouldn't ever change. He said that a child like her couldn't be raised by anyone, and that we'd all be better off if she was sent away to an asylum where she belonged."

Marian couldn't help her reaction – she flinched and gasped, reaching out to grasp Nellie's hand to comfort her. The idea that a parent could be so callous as to commit his own child to an institution was not new to her, but imagining Milly Appleton in such a situation – Milly, who was gentle and intelligent and decidedly _not_ mad – made the horror palpable. Though she was not yet a mother, Marian was well aware of the maternal imperatives that would compel a woman to do absolutely anything for her child... how much stronger must those feelings be in somebody like Mrs. Appleton who had already been forced to defend her child's very life!

Her head slumping down, the tears finally escaped from Mrs. Appleton's eyes. She fought to control her breathing, presumably to prevent Milly from becoming aware of her crying. The girl was still playing blithely in the parlor, chattering merrily to the cat while she colored.

"I told him that if what he wanted was to have Milly gone, he could have it – and while he was at it, he could be rid of me as well. He told me that he knew I wouldn't do it. That I wouldn't dare. But he was wrong, of course. I'd made up my mind to leave him the moment that he'd said the word 'asylum'. Thankfully, he was so fed up with our sham of a marriage that he didn't even resist me on it.

"It wasn't that far to Iowa, so I decided to move here because it was convenient enough, and because I at least wanted the boundary of a state line between us. I was lucky in that I had the skills to be a teacher. I never told anybody that I was a widow, but they always assumed it, and... I didn't tell them otherwise. People are more willing to deal with a widow than a divorcée, and I needed to do whatever I could to make sure that I could still get honest work and support the two of us.

"I suppose it was fortunate that everything happened right when it did. Clyde never would have let me go if he'd known that I was carrying another child, but even I didn't know that at the time. I didn't even know that until _after_ I'd taken the job in River City. If it had been just a little later when he'd revealed his true intentions regarding our daughter, I would have had to stay and watch him send Milly away – or run away with her in the night and be guilty of kidnapping.

"I never expected things to go smoothly, but I was naïve enough to think that people might judge me based on what had actually happened! A pregnant mother who runs out on her husband, depriving her children of a father – isn't that enough of a scandal? But without knowing the real story, I suppose it does rather look like I might simply be a false widow with loose morals – and of course nobody except you knows the real story.

"I can accept most things about the way that my life has turned out. I know I'll probably never know what it's like to be in love, probably never have a marriage like yours – but I've come to terms with that. It just tears me up inside to think that _Milly_ might be hurt by all this scandal. People are hard enough on a peculiar child even when they don't hate her mother."

"They don't hate you," Marian insisted. "They didn't even think of you as – as _you_! When they watch somebody from a distance, they just see opportunities for rumors and gossip, not a whole person at all. But now –"

"Now, they think that I'm a crazy woman who throws fits in public, with a daughter who does the same." Nellie's tone was flat and without hope.

The librarian tried to quickly bring a stop to her friend's self-deprecation. " _Now_ they see you as a loving mother who was desperate to protect her daughter. I really think that what they saw this afternoon might have changed their thinking. Even _without_ knowing the story that you shared with me today, I think they could see what a good and brave person you are."

"But I offended Mrs. Lloyd horribly!"

"Mrs. Lloyd isn't one of them, though – and I don't think they minded watching her get her comeuppance after she'd spent the day offending _us_."

"Oh, I don't –" The bright ringing of the doorbell interrupted Nellie, who nearly jumped out of her chair at the sound. "Who could that be? Nobody visits here – except you, of course, Marian. I do hope that some of my students haven't come to play a prank on me."

Gingerly pushing aside the blue gingham curtain, Nellie peered sideways through the kitchen window – and let out a small cry.

"Witch hunters at the door," the teacher moaned as she stumbled back from the window in alarm. "Or maybe they've chosen the slightly kinder tradition of the Puritans and they're just here to sew on my scarlet letter A." She leaned back against the counter as though her legs might give way otherwise and grasped at her collar as if it were choking her.

Marian could feel her pulse increase with alarm as her stunned mind tried to process the meaning of Nellie's histrionics, but she was determined to remain level-headed, if only to keep Nellie from losing her head completely. "I'm sure it's nothing that bad. Let me see... oh!"

Due to the other woman's outburst, Marian was not entirely surprised by what she saw outside – it was, indeed, the members of the Ladies' Events Committee who had arrived at the English teacher's door – but the specifics of the situation were odd and, to her relief, not exactly threatening. The women looked a little nervous, but not proud or cruel, and, for some reason, each one of them was holding a book.

Most strikingly of all, despite the presence of more domineering figures in the group, most notably Mrs. Shinn, the "mob" was led by a beaming Ethel Washburn, who was clutching an entire stack of books in her arms. It was this that truly set Marian at ease, and she turned to Nellie Appleton with an encouraging smile.

"It doesn't look like they mean you any harm," Marian told her, though she was aware that the claim must not have sounded terribly convincing without any hard evidence to back it up. She took another quick glance out the window, trying to glean another helpful tidbit with which to embolden her friend. "There's no Mrs. Lloyd with them, but Mrs. Washburn _is_ with them, and I trust that she'd not take part in any witch hunt."

Straightening her skirts and quickly concealing how disheveled her hair had become with a few strategically relocated hairpins, Nellie pulled herself to her full height – which was quite tall – and strode toward the door. "It would do no good to avoid the problem, at any rate," she stated pragmatically.

A little uncertain of her place in this situation, the librarian lingered on the threshold of the kitchen, in view of the front door but far enough away that she would not interfere with whatever was about to unfold there. Although she was fairly confident that this development was positive, she still held her breath as Nellie opened the door and revealed the ladies standing there.

"Good evening, ladies," Mrs. Appleton murmured, and already her confident bearing was disappearing, her body and her voice shrinking into themselves as she lost her bravado in the face of potential judgement.

Ethel, whether or not she was aware of it, was a brilliant actress. She displayed no sign of unease or discomfort, only radiant enthusiasm as she gushed forth about a subject that Marian had never heard her mention up until that moment. "Oh, good evening, Mrs. Appleton," she effused. "I know we haven't called on you before, but we are the Ladies Events Committee of River City, and as the only lady English teacher River City has had in _years_ – we wanted to take this opportunity to ask you to help us form a Ladies' Literary Society!"

Marian could not have been more shocked if Ethel had announced the ladies' intention to sprout wings and fly to the moon.

"A... Ladies' Literary Society," Nellie repeated, as if the words were in a foreign language of which she had only a rudimentary knowledge. "So, a sort of club, for... reading? A book club?"

"For _literature_ ," Mrs. Shinn declared, clearly priding herself on the distinction.

Alma Hix nodded vigorously. "We have developed a certain interest in works of a literary caliber over the past year or so –"

"And we've simply adored them all!" Maud Dunlop exclaimed. "But we've wondered if we might not be understanding everything quite as intended, as we certainly don't have any of the expertise possessed by someone such as yourself or Mrs. Hill."

Ethel grinned, rocking back and forward slightly on her toes, near to bursting with whatever she planned to say next. "Right, so we thought it might be nice to, well, you know, enhance our intellectuality. But of course, we didn't want to lay such a burden solely on Mrs. Hill's shoulders, but perhaps between the two of you – you might be able to devise something?"

"Mrs. Hill is actually here with me now, so why don't you all come in?" Nellie asked, stepping to the side.

The librarian blushed awkwardly as the ladies' eyes fell upon her – had her unspoken presence qualified as eavesdropping?

However, Ethel continued to lead the charge with fervor, running forth to express how wonderfully fortunate it was to have the two literary ladies together on this occasion. When the timer rang in the kitchen and Nellie ran to get her cookies, there was more delight from the ladies who had spent many hours that day around baked goods that they were not permitted to eat. Everything seemed to be unfolding exceptionally well – and as Milly had already retreated to a back room to play the piano, many of the ladies remarked approvingly on her talent and charm without having to submit the child to the ordeal of meeting many strangers.

As the ladies gathered around the dining room table, Nellie gave Marian a brief, incredulous glance, as if to ask, _How?_

The answer was written all over the face of one Ethel Toffelmier Washburn, who was already delivering a long list of reasons why such a club would be highly beneficial to River City as a whole.

It occurred to Marian that she had woefully underestimated Ethel's potential all along.

xxx

An hour or so later, when the meeting had resolved and Nellie and Marian had agreed to help establish the literary society, Marian simply couldn't bear her curiosity any longer, so while the rest of the ladies doted on Nellie, the librarian stole away into the kitchen with Ethel.

As soon as they were alone together, Marian almost burst into laughter at her friend's sheer ingenuity. "This was all your idea, wasn't it?" she asked, her eyes wide. "That is, the ladies surely haven't been planning this for months... right?"

Giggling lightly, Ethel waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, of course not, I thought of that this afternoon. I've been trying to think of what to do ever since our picnic, but it wasn't until today that I thought of a book club. It was just a silly little idea, and I didn't suppose that it would go anywhere, but then the ladies seemed a lot fonder of poor Mrs. Appleton all of a sudden after the bake sale today."

"Because they saw how she cares for her daughter, you think? Or because she confronted Mrs. Lloyd?"

"Well, those things certainly helped, but a lot of it was because of _you_ , Miss Marian!"

" _Me_?" Marian had been so certain that the opposite would happen – that her approval of Mrs. Appleton would be considered a blot on her already uncertain reputation – that it had not even vaguely occurred to her that the other ladies might trust her as a judge of character.

Ethel nodded, her gaze sincere and earnest. "Oh, they value your opinion quite a lot! I wasn't lying about _everything_ , you know – they really do admire you for being so smart and reading so many books. They think it's just wonderful, the way that you've taken care of your mother and your brother these past years. And I think, in a way, they respect the way that you don't like gossip. They thought that if somebody as trustworthy as you cared about Mrs. Appleton, then maybe they ought to listen."

"I've always wondered if maybe they just liked me because Harold pushed them to like me in the first place, and because I became his wife," Marian admitted in a whisper. "Everybody likes Harold, and everybody listens to what he has to say, so I suspected that I might just be the beneficiary of his charisma."

"Professor Hill did get things turned around for you in the beginning, that's true – but we don't just like you because of who your husband happens to be! At least, I know that's not why _I'm_ your friend."

She was almost tempted to ask Ethel to elaborate, but as happy as this news made her, Marian recognized that this was not the time to go fishing for compliments when there were far more important issues at hand.

"And you think that they'll just... accept her now, even after everything that they've said and thought?" Marian knew that she shouldn't have been so skeptical of this, considering how quickly the ladies had changed their opinion of _her_ , but then that had been at a time when everything had been changing so rapidly and wonderfully that nothing seemed impossible.

"Not only have they decided that Mrs. Appleton is a scholarly type who's worthy of respect, but they also got to watch her go off on that wretched biddy – oops, that wasn't nice – but I stand by it! I don't think the ladies feel so inclined to be opposed to somebody who's both the friend of a friend and the enemy of an enemy."

"I just don't know if they've exactly learned a lesson from any of this," said Marian, frowning. "They've given up gossiping about me, true, and they seem poised to stop gossiping about Nellie, but not quite for the right reasons. If they didn't learn to stop making terrible assumptions about people last July, then I doubt that this will stop them."

For the first time, Ethel looked a little nervous. "No... which is why you're going to have to teach them."

It was with great difficulty that the librarian held back a blatant protest, but she tried to be patient, seeing as Ethel's plan had proven to be quite well-thought out so far. "What do you mean by that?"

"Specifically, you and Mrs. Appleton are going to teach them, and you're going to do it through this very society we've started here!" Ethel squealed, clapping her hands together. "Ooh, I should be quieter so they don't get suspicious. But, believe it or not, I have done my research, Miss Marian, and I have the most perfect idea!"

So it was that the good-hearted wives of the entirely reformed con men Harold Hill and Marcellus Washburn entered into a secret scheme of their own...


	5. Epilogue: A Better July

July 1913 in River City was not nearly as revolutionary as July 1912 had been, but it was astonishing how truly different the town had become in the past year, and it was perhaps the events of America's Independence Day that year which highlighted the transformation best of all.

On July 4, 1912, the con man Harold Hill had enticed the eager River City-ziens' hands to their hearts and their purse strings with the empty promise of a grand marching band, while only the spinster piano teacher Marian Paroo looked on in scornful disdain of his true motives; on July 4, 1913, Professor Harold Hill led his small but thriving boys' band in a parade down Main Street while his wife Marian looked on in adoration, kissing him right in front of everyone when it was over, the happy couple later returning home for a much more private and passionate celebration that lasted long into the night.

Winthrop Paroo, who had spent the previous holiday clinging sullenly to his mother's side, could scarcely even be found after the parade concluded, as he spent hours adventuring with his friends by the lakeside, fishing and running after frogs and swinging through trees. He only caught up to Mrs. Paroo when he collapsed beside her on a picnic blanket that evening, happily exhausted, as the fireworks flashed overhead and the members of the School Committee sang in perfect harmony.

Mrs. Shinn and her ladies, in the midst of their Town Beautification Campaign, had taken it upon themselves (and, most importantly, managed to push much of the more arduous labor upon their sons and husbands) to ensure the planting of many flowers and trees in River City's more sparse areas, and had even commissioned that a few dusty dirt roads be transformed into cobblestone paths and a large "River City, Iowa" sign was erected outside the town hall. While the difference was not extraordinary, it was enough to make the town outwardly represent the more colorful, more welcoming sort of place that it was truly beginning to be.

Though River City had never been a town that was given much regard by any except those who lived there, word of mouth about the band had spread to nearby towns to the point that some even traveled there to witness the parade – the likes of which they had never seen before. Many of them were inspired to purchase instruments for their own children, and one or two even carried home stories that were fantastic enough to convince the townspeople there to form their own bands. As all of this business was carried out through Harold, the emporium had never been doing better... and somehow, the unassuming hamlet of River City had gained a proud and deserved reputation as the musical capital of eastern Iowa. It was enough to make even Mayor Shinn truly grateful that Harold Hill had chanced to get off the train in River City the year before.

xxx

A little more than a week after this triumphant celebration, the Ladies' Literary Society met in Nellie Appleton's home in order to facilitate the continued improvement of River City's cultural awareness – or, at least, to taste the latest delicious confections that Mrs. Appleton had prepared for them.

Some new River City-ziens had made their appearances since last July, as well, and not only from immigration. While newborn Samuel Appleton slept peacefully nearby, Marian Paroo Hill occasionally rested her hand on her still-flat stomach with a rush of delirious joy, the only one in the room aware that there was another baby present at the meeting. Though it probably wouldn't remain that way for long... Marian had prudently informed no one except her mother of the happy news, but Harold would certainly not be able to keep himself from telling Marcellus for very long, and such information would not be very safe in the hands of both Mrs. Washburn and Mrs. Paroo.

That was why it was important that this discussion today go as planned, because she suspected that as soon as the existence of the unborn baby Hill became public knowledge, these meetings were going to become more about babies than anything else – certainly, Nellie's son was already proving himself to be enough of a distraction from the pursuits of literature, as the ladies could not help but devote several minutes to the praise of his round pink cheeks or soft dark curls each time that they remembered his presence. It seemed unlikely that the Literary Society could continue to exist in its current form once both Marian _and_ Nellie were busy with infants, anyway.

Ethel's plan had seemed too obvious when she had first revealed it, and Marian had harbored serious doubts that it would prove successful. Ethel's simple suggestion was that if the ladies could be compelled to discuss the certain issues in the context of books, they might at last gain the awareness to examine their own consciences without having to bear any personal accusations. So, together with Ethel's help, Nellie and Marian had created a syllabus of books that was just a little heavy on those topics.

Marian had been so certain that this sort of thing would be painfully transparent (Would the ladies really not wonder why they were assigned to read _Much Ado About Nothing_ , for instance? Nobody ever spent much time delving deeply into Shakespeare's _comedies_!) but the ladies did not question any book that they were given. The librarian and English teacher simply explained that it might be interesting to explore the range of atmosphere and emotion of which William Shakespeare was capable of creating, and that the ladies might wish to read something lighter after poor Cordelia's fate in _King Lear_ had distressed them so.

Their earlier discussion of _The Scarlet Letter_ had led them down some interesting avenues – the ladies concluded that though Hester Prynne was undeniably guilty of a serious sin, it must have been awfully unpleasant to have to live a life of such utter isolation, especially when there were so many more unsavory types who were allowed to be free. And what of the child, wondered Mrs. Hix, who had done nothing to deserve the punishment for the sins of her mother? Was exerting their moral superiority over Hester really worth the potential damage to poor Pearl?

There was a certain conflicted sadness in the older woman's eyes as she made these observations that made Marian suspect that she was, in fact, reconsidering some of her own choices at that moment.

Their reading of _Much Ado About Nothing_ proved, surprisingly, to have even greater results, perhaps because the victim in that story was entirely guiltless of her alleged transgressions.

When they came to discuss the climactic wedding scene that resulted in the innocent Hero's public humiliation, Mrs. Squires shook her head, _tsk_ ing lightly. "I couldn't believe what an awful boor that Leonato was to Hero, believing such horrible things about his own _daughter_."

Mrs. Hix nodded vigorously, her eyes wide. "And Claudio, rejecting her on their wedding day? Why, he said that he loved her! How could he have let that dreadful Don John and Borachio convince him that she was unfaithful?"

"Claudio _did_ think that he had witnessed it," Marian admitted, happy to goad the conversation along. "So, perhaps he was not entirely at fault."

"It shouldn't have mattered," Mrs. Hix insisted. "If he really loved Hero so much, he should have taken her word over that vile man's. Why, I was surprised that she took him back so easily afterward!"

An enigmatic smile lit Nellie's features, and she folded her hands as she stared pointedly at Alma Hix. "I see what you mean. I imagine it would be very difficult for her to trust someone who had called her – hmm, what were those epithets he threw her way? _Wanton. Intemperate. Animal. Foul._ "

"Exactly!" responded Mrs. Hix, rapping her knuckles decisively against her book. "Claudio was lucky that she would give him the time of day after such slander, never mind _marry_ him."

Marian and Nellie exchanged glances, both of them trying quite valiantly not to point out the significance of what was being said. In that instant, the librarian decided to risk another reckless prod at the hornet's nest. "Very lucky, indeed. But perhaps Claudio might have made a fine husband at that point, having learned his lesson. After such an incident, he surely would have known better than to _ever_ judge a person based on spurious accusations again – wouldn't he?"

The arrow seemed to have hit its mark at last – the ladies gazed dumbfounded back at Marian, alternately flushing and blanching with stricken embarrassment.

Beside them, Ethel Washburn had pressed her hand to her mouth, barely holding back a giggle.

After several seconds of this, Marian deemed that it would probably be best to steer the ladies back into a more benign discussion of the play, but Mrs. Shinn startled her by speaking first.

"I agree, Mrs. Hill." The voice of the mayor's wife was shaking slightly, a sound that Marian had never heard from her before. "As very much as – as Hero was humiliated, I believe that it is also a great humiliation to be caught making such baseless claims and be proven absolutely wrong. I imagine that he would know better than to do it a second time."

"And if somehow he didn't know better," Maud Dunlop said quietly, "he would feel simply dreadful about it. He'd wonder how he'd ever been so dense not to see it after the first time."

Mrs. Hix added, "He would feel like a contemptible fool. And _that_ would be enough to teach him his lesson." Shifting in her chair, she cleared her throat, suddenly abashed. "I'd imagine, that is."

_So, that's how they feel_ , Marian thought, awed at how well the seemingly transparent plan had worked out. _I really ought to thank Ethel later – to think that a discussion of literature would lead them to say such things!_

Casting her eyes around the room, the librarian saw that Nellie's eyes were wide and startled – very likely, the English teacher was thinking the same sort of thing. "I imagine that Hero would be happy to know that Claudio wouldn't make that mistake again," Nellie murmured. "After all, she wouldn't ever want to see another person hurt that way."

The ladies nodded soberly, and it seemed that none of them could find the words to speak again. As much as this turn of events had delighted her, Marian knew that she musn't let them wallow in the awkward moment for too long, lest they begin tosuspect that it had all been a part of her design, so she quickly concocted a new point for discussion.

"So, now, what do you think about the relationship between Benedick and Claudio?" Marian asked, and the ladies looked grateful to have been rescued. "Do you really think that Benedick would have killed Claudio at Beatrice's demand?..."

For the first time in her years as librarian, Marian truly felt that she could make a difference in the lives of the River City-ziens, and she knew that, even after the baby was born, she did not want the Ladies' Literary Society to become a thing of the past.

xxx

The day had been hot, and the night remained a little warm, but, with the open window sending breezes across the bedroom and her thinnest nightgown on, Marian felt comfortable enough to lay cozily underneath the covers while she read. The serene, comforting sounds of Harold taking a bath in the washroom, crickets chirping outside and the soft rustle of the leaves in the trees gave the librarian a sense of perfect contentment and the feeling that all was right with the world, at least in their little corner of it.

When Harold at last slipped into bed beside her, she was almost dozing off even as she attempted to keep reading – and then he surprised her by placing a finger in her book, tilting it down so he could look her in the eyes.

"You know, you never mentioned how your meeting went today," her husband stated.

Marian was a bit startled by this sudden display of interest – he'd wanted to know every detail about the very first one back in May, but after that he'd been no more eager to talk about it than she was to discuss his every band rehearsal. And right now she was feeling so pleasantly drowsy that she could barely remember the details of the meeting herself.

"It was fine," the librarian blurted, cringing at the bland remark as soon as she'd said it. "I mean, I don't really know what there is to say about a meeting..."

But Harold was persistent. " _Much Ado About Nothing_ , right? The second installment in your plan to get them to talk about why they shouldn't spread rumors?"

"I didn't know you knew anything about it," she exclaimed, consigning her book and spectacles to the bedside table as she grew more and more interested in this development.

"Well, it was lying around the house and I didn't know what it was about, so I read it," he informed her matter-of-factly. "I just opened it to take a look, but I found myself compelled to read further to see what became of Beatrice and Benedick once I realized that they were – well, practically you and me, darling!"

"The thought certainly crossed my mind," Marian laughed. "The sharp-tongued lady and the smooth-talking man who are so convinced that they hate each other until they fall madly in love..."

"Sounds awfully familiar," the professor concluded with a smile as he pulled her close to kiss her cheek.

Sighing a little pensively in spite of her husband's affection, Marian found herself recalling just why she had chosen that particular play to be read by the book club. "I must admit, when I first read the play several years ago, I identified far too closely for comfort with poor Hero. A reputation so destroyed by false accusations that it very nearly destroys her completely... I certainly felt that way sometimes. _Done to death by slandr'ous tongues..._ "

"But you'll never have to feel that way again," Harold stated adamantly, wrapping his arms around her in loving protectiveness.

Even as she relaxed into his embrace in bliss, Marian gave a vehement shake of her head. "No, nor will Nellie, nor – anybody, if I have anything to say about it!"

"Think you made progress on them this time?"

Now that her haze of sleepiness had worn off, Marian remembered that today's meeting had, in fact, been quite noteworthy. "I think we really may have. If you could have heard them talk! I think they finally understand how wrong they were. Not just specifically about me and Mrs. Appleton, but in general. Maybe the next time they think of some awful thing that another woman might be guilty of, they'll remember what they said today, and, well, stop thinking it! It's all about planting the seeds in their minds."

"Even for such a noble cause, you make it sound almost devious," the music professor said with a grin, wiggling his eyebrows at her. "You ladies've got all the elements of a small-scale con set up."

Marian shoved against his shoulder with a good-natured roll of her eyes. "Oh, don't even start!"

Laughing, Harold suddenly pinned her down to the pillow in a childish move that was almost a tackle, brushing her hair back from her neck to he could kiss her there – feather-light kisses that were clearly intended more to make her laugh than anything else. Marian giggled and squirmed in his arms to avoid his tickling fingers, which were quickly making their way down the sensitive undersides of her arms and rendering her helpless.

"That's not exactly an answer, Professor!" she scolded between gasps of laughter.

Attempting to put a stop to his incessant tickling, Marian grabbed at his hands and pinned them – and realized that both their hands had ended up clasped right over her abdomen. Their laughter stopped quickly; she could hear Harold sigh softly in her ear, and she knew that his thoughts had gone to the same place that hers had.

It had been scarcely two weeks since a visit to the doctor had confirmed Marian's pregnancy, and the two of them still felt as though they were living in a kind of dream. Even all the physical discomforts that Marian had been experiencing for the past few months seemed insignificant now, when faced with the sheer wonder that their love had created another life. It was something that they had both confessed to wanting desperately, and then, as almost a matter of course, it had simply come to them right when they were feeling the most ready for it to happen.

In a sort of reverence, Harold's hands embraced her belly in the new way that they had many times in the past couple weeks, and his eyes flashed with powerful emotion. "I still can't believe..."

"I know," she whispered, her voice breathy with the unparalleled joy of this, their most wonderful little secret.

" _Ours_. Sometimes, just during the day at work, I think about that little child inside you and – and – I can't even describe how happy and proud it makes me, to think of being a father, and that my child is _yours_ , too."

Interlacing her fingers with his, she kissed him warmly and quoted, " _Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much._ "

Harold pressed his lips together in thought. "That's still _Much Ado About Nothing_ , right?"

"Indeed it is," she confirmed.

"Our baby's going to come out of the womb quoting Shakespeare," he noted wryly.

"I daresay you should be proud of such an accomplishment!"

"But it's you who'll have put in the hard work –"

"Of the Shakespeare-teaching _and_ the childbearing."

"That's the only thing that makes me uncomfortable about this baby business. You know how I hate to see you unwell."

"I really think I'm getting better. I'm not too tired tonight," Marian observed pleasantly. Her earlier drowsiness had been the result of great comfort rather than fatigue, and now that it had passed she felt awake and wonderfully clear-headed.

All at once she felt very conscious of the nearness of her husband's body, the fascinating muscles of his arms, the wonderful masculine strength in his chest and abdomen, and the way that his just-washed hair fell in loose, unkempt curls over his forehead. Before Harold, Marian never would have dreamed to ascribe such words as _beautiful_ or _gorgeous_ to a man, but she knew no other way to describe how immensely attractive he was, and she felt a certain immodest satisfaction in knowing that he was entirely hers, the sort of satisfaction that he had confessed to _her_ frequently.

It had been nearly a week since she'd had the energy to make love – just about a record for them. She imagined that he must have been feeling at least as starved for it as she was, but maybe tonight...

"I'm glad," Harold answered, leaning back with a yawn. "Maybe you're already getting past the fatigue, like the doctor mentioned. But I suppose that you ought to get your rest now, anyway."

As he lay down fully against his pillow and reached back toward his bedside lamp, Marian knew that her disbelief showed plain on her face. He _had_ gotten a bit too careful with her ever since they'd learned of her pregnancy – he'd confessed that it was difficult for him to get used to the idea that making love to a pregnant woman was even permitted – but really, was he waiting for her to outright _ask_?

She reached out and caught his arm in her hand before he had a chance to reach the lamp."Harold, I said that _I'm not too tired_ ," she repeated with a blush, hoping that she might be able to get her message across with a simple emphasis of the words.

" _Oh_ ," he exclaimed, looking so pleased that Marian had to laugh. "So, you want..."

"Of course! Don't you?" She lowered her eyes a little, slightly embarrassed by how swift and forceful her response had been. Harold, however, did not seem offended at all.

"Of course!" he echoed, joyfully pulling her close for a long, deep kiss.

Desperate for his touch, the librarian acquiesced to his embrace eagerly, leaning up to help him slide her straps down her arms even while she nimbly unbuttoned his nightshirt. Her desire verged on overwhelming, and the more that they kissed and touched and moved together, the more urgently she needed him. To think that he had been prepared to simply drop off to sleep and leave her alone tonight – she felt intensely grateful that she had been bold enough to speak up!

However, just as soon as her music professor had worked her breasts free of her nightgown and occupied himself very thoroughly with them, Marian felt a warm summer breeze tousle the curls around her face, and she pulled back a little, suddenly uneasy.

"I think... you might want to close the window, dear. We don't want anyone to hear..."

Harold chuckled and cocked his head at her, and even before he said it Marian knew that he had a ribald remark at the ready. "Are you planning on being loud?"

The bluntness of his comment made her blush furiously, but she was experienced enough by now to provide a quick retort even in her embarrassment. "Well, I hope you're planning on giving me a reason to be..."

With his mouth caressing her breast and his fingers exploring between her legs, he immediately proceeded to give her such a reason, and even biting her lip could not help her to hold back her cry of delight.

She gasped and trembled a little as he continued to prove his point – she should have known better than to doubt him in that arena, even jokingly! – but she remained conscious of the open windows that were so close by.

"The _window_ ," she protested feebly, though she hardly felt inclined to interrupt her husband in his current activities.

As soon he had gotten her out of her nightgown, Harold raised his head, a frown coloring his heated expression. "Why are you so worried about that right now? It's not like we've never left it open before, and we're all the way up here on the second floor, besides. No one will hear."

"You're right, I suppose," Marian admitted. She laughed softly as she thought of the perfect antidote for her worries. "If anybody'd ever heard anything, I guess we'd know by now. A rumor like that would need no embellishment!"

Shrugging his nightshirt off his shoulders, Harold grinned broadly at her. "The window stays open, sweetheart. It's a hot night, and it's only going to get hotter in here..."

Marian tried her best to look appalled, but, as usual, she derived a sort of shameless thrill from his innuendo. Still, she made a show of admonishing him, knowing that he would be ready for it. "Really, Harold, do you _always_ have to –"

"You know I do, and I know you love it."

Unable to refute either point, and no longer in the mood for any sort of discussion, she could only respond by wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him as close to her as she possibly could, an action which he reciprocated eagerly.

The previous July, Marian never could have fathomed that she would be spending a delightful summer evening like _this_ – and with Harold Hill, of all men in the world! But now, a year later, it was just another part of the blissful little world that they had built together, and she couldn't imagine a single thing that could make her happier right now than to make love to him.

Loving him passionately with her heart and mind and body, Marian knew that, despite all the daily inevitable imperfections of life and of people, if there was anything in the universe that could be called _perfect_ , it was what she and Harold had together. Not perfect all the time, maybe – but perfect enough for them, and getting closer and closer every day. Together, they were happy enough that, as Shakespeare had written, they would never be able to say how much.


End file.
